President Donald Trump signed a major Dodd-Frank rollback into law Thursday, hoping to bring regulatory relief to community banks across the U.S. The president explained Dodd-Frank’s costly regulations gave large banks a negative advantage at the cost of small banks throughout the country. Click the headline to read more.

ARTICLES

President Donald Trump signed a major Dodd-Frank rollback into law Thursday, hoping to bring regulatory relief to community banks across the U.S. The president explained Dodd-Frank’s costly regulations gave large banks a negative advantage at the cost of small banks throughout the country. Click the headline to read more.

Mortgage rates haven't risen this consistently to start a year in more than 40 years, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Primary Mortgage Market survey. “Through May, rates have risen in 15 out of the first 21 weeks, which is the highest share since Freddie Mac began tracking this data for a full year in 1972,” Freddie Mac Chief Economist Sam Khater noted.

Treasure Valley, indeed! The data used for the VeroFORECAST shows the Boise-Nampa MSA has a very tight 1.7 months supply of homes, meaning that if no listings were added and demand continued at the current rate, everything currently for sale would be gone in about seven weeks.

At the Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary conference in New York City, I sat down with Freddie Mac to discuss the latest trends in the secondary market. To put it simply – times are tough for lenders as they face increased seasonality changes and fierce competition.

[Op-ed] Information is shared rapidly but information is only information. It does not mean it is accurate information. Investigation is usually warranted. Communication is key. Speak to colleagues, managers, borrowers, title, and ask questions about anything that doesn't make sense.

Opendoor, an online marketplace that buys homes directly from homeowners, announced this week it has expanded its Homebuilder Program beyond its pilot and is now available to all homebuilders. Homeowners using the program can sell their existing home to Opendoor and be connected with a homebuilder that will build them a new home, all in one transaction.

The long-standing nomination of Brian Montgomery, President Donald Trump's pick to lead the Federal Housing Administration, is finally over. Montgomery was confirmed Wednesday as FHA commissioner by the Senate in a vote of 74 to 23. Click the headline to read more.

Mortgage applications followed last week’s decreasing trend, falling 2.6% from last week and the refinance index dropped to its lowest level since December 2000, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 18, 2018.

The final day of the Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary conference in New York City ended with a panel of experts who spoke on the importance of the digital mortgage to the secondary market. Panelists explained that consumers aren’t the only ones who benefit from the digital mortgage and eClosing process.

Access to credit remains tight not only compared to the housing boom years but also compared to historical levels. At the Mortgage Bankers Association Secondary conference in New York City, panelists at the Access to Credit session discussed how to safely open the credit box, and what some of the current hindrances are.

Paulina Gonzalez is the executive director of the California Reinvestment Coalition, which advocates for the right of low-income communities and communities of color to have fair and equal access to banking and other financial services. CRC has a membership of over 300 nonprofit organizations and public agencies across the State.
Follow her on Twitter @calreinvest

This month inHousingWire magazine

He wears t-shirts to his televised interviews; not very CEO. He played sports at a high level, but rarely brings it up and when he does he talks about it as a mere chapter in his life. Honestly, who plays a Super Bowl and doesn’t describe it as the defining moment in their personal journey? Casey Crawford, that’s who. His family is a big part of his life of course, but he talks about his even larger family — his coworkers — in terms that are just as glowing.

Feature

One of the things that has bedeviled mortgage financing post-crisis has been the absence of the private label mortgage backed securities market. During the peak years, private label MBS issuance topped $1 trillion. In 2017, only $70 billion of private label RMBS were issued, although that is a big increase from 2016.

Commentary

Digital technology has disrupted businesses and industries from publishing to public transportation, so can the mortgage industry be far behind? Actually, anyone who’s applied for a mortgage recently will have recognized that things are already changing fast.